About

CENTRAL CHIDLOM

Central Department Store has a long and illustrious history, helping to shape the retail industry in Thailand.

The Central legacy started in 1947, with Tiang and Samrit Chirathivat bringing in innovative ideas with new merchandise lines of ready-made clothing and cosmetics to offer alongside newspapers and magazines to the Thai public.

Throughout the following decades, Central grew with new stores opening across Bangkok, bringing in pioneering ideas to the Thai retail industry, such as merchandise displays, fixed pricing systems and linking supermarkets to their stores brought new ideas and standards to their customers.

1973 saw a landmark for Central Department Store, with the opening of its flagship store at Chidlom, in the heart of Bangkok. This new monument to retail offered the first in ‘one-stop shopping’ where everything that customers would want could be found in one retail centre.

Always keeping the customers’ needs at heart, Central expanded rapidly and became the first Bangkok-based department store to reach out to the rest of the country, opening new stores across the whole of the country offering the highest in standards to those who may not be able to get to Bangkok and establishing itself as truly ‘Thailand’s Best-Loved Department Store’.

The last decade has seen Central look further afield, with an expansion into the ASEAN market and the opening of new Central Department Stores giving a regional appeal throughout south-east Asia, and then to Europe with LaRinascente, Illum, KaDeWe, Alsterhaus and Oberpollinger brought into the Central family to set Central as a truly international name in the retail industry.

With all of these expansions, Central has kept to its original ethos and still family run by the Chirathivats, it prides itself on its unwavering commitment to maintain the best products and services available, exciting lifestyle activities and interactions and unparalleled customer services.